Sexual/textual marginalities of Caribbean inspiration and origin a thesis on two texts by two women writers of Caribbean origin upon the theme of marginality

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the theme of Marginality in Writing by women of Caribbean origin. My work condensed itself into a specific analysis of two texts. Taken together, these texts focus the insights I researched into a significant whole. Each text was written by a woman of Caribbean origin, and their backgrounds are a symbolic polarity from each other. Jean Rhys was a white Creole born in Dominica in 1894 and who spent her adult life in England; Jamaica Kincaid is black, native to Antigua and now a journalist in New York. The protagonists of each text - Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys - are both young girls influenced by the image of their mothers. Significantly, they share almost the same name (Annie/Antoinette) which is also that of their mothers. Thus they become a symbolic fusion of a heroine of Caribbean origin. In the course of extensive and eclectic reading, I discovered the theme of Marginality to be entwined with the concept of Intertextuality. In separate chapters, I have discussed marginality with reference to narrative structure and narrative time, image and metaphor, culture (which involves colonialism in the Caribbean), race relations and gender (specifically feminist), and ultimately according to Susan Sontag's observation of the marginal literary subject: an unimportant 'work' ... could be a marvellous 'text’. Considering something as a 'text' means...precisely to suspend conventional evaluations. ... notions of 'text’ and 'textuality' charges the critic with the task of discarding worn-out meanings for fresh ones. I hope that in the course of my thesis, I have succeeded in the enlightenment of fresh meanings in Writing by women of Caribbean origin. I conclude that an understanding of the significance of these texts lies in the fact that their marginal quality is part of a total intertextuality.